THE 40TH PRESIDENT: THE OPPONENTS

THE 40TH PRESIDENT: THE OPPONENTS; Critics See a Reagan Legacy Tainted by AIDS, Civil Rights and Union Policies

By ROBIN TONER and ROBERT PEAR

Published: June 9, 2004

WASHINGTON, June 8—
Despite Ronald Reagan's personal popularity, his domestic agenda was in many ways bitterly polarizing. Then, as now, conservatives hailed his tax cuts, his stirring defense of traditional values and his commitment to getting government ''off the backs'' of the American people.

But many liberals and progressives see his domestic legacy very differently, particularly on AIDS, civil rights, reproductive rights and poverty. Though clearly sympathetic to Mr. Reagan's family, they are still angry over his policies, which they assert reflected the unbridled influence of social conservatives.

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, posted an open letter on his organization's Web site this week, addressed to a friend and fellow gay rights advocate who died of AIDS. ''I have tremendous empathy and respect for Mrs. Reagan, who lovingly cared'' for her husband ''through excruciating years of Alzheimer's,'' he wrote. ''But even on this day I'm not able to set aside the shaking anger I feel over Reagan's nonresponse to the AIDS epidemic or for the continuing anti-gay legacy of his administration.''

Advocates for people with AIDS have long asserted that Mr. Reagan's lack of leadership on the disease, which was first reported by the Centers for Disease Control in 1981, significantly hindered research and education efforts to fight it. His surgeon general, Dr. C. Everett Koop, wrote later that ''political meddlers in the White House'' had complicated his work on the disease, and that ''at least a dozen times I pleaded with my critics in the White House to let me have a meeting with President Reagan'' on AIDS in the mid 1980's.

Mr. Reagan did not make extensive public comments on AIDS until 1987.

In an interview, Mr. Foreman declared: ''That history can't be forgotten. I owe it to the people that I lost not to forget it, not to pretend like it didn't happen.''

Gary Bauer, Mr. Reagan's domestic policy adviser for the last two years of his administration, countered that spending on AIDS research rose under Mr. Reagan. Moreover, he said, because of Mr. Reagan's strong belief in cabinet government, the president largely ceded the job of speaking out on AIDS to Dr. Koop and the secretary of health and human services.

In general, a hallmark of Mr. Reagan's domestic policy was an effort to slow or reverse the growth of the federal government. He and his first budget director, David A. Stockman, repeatedly tried to trim health, education and social welfare programs that had been expanding for decades, and they achieved much of what they proposed.

''A big part of Reagan's agenda was the devolution of social policy'' from the federal government to the states, said John L. Palmer, a scholar of the Reagan years.

But many liberals say that Mr. Reagan broke with the New Deal notion that government could -- and should -- be an instrument of social equity.

Representative Barney Frank, a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, said: ''He really did turn away from the notion that there was a positive role for government. When he said in his first inaugural, 'government is not the answer to our problems, government is the problem,' he really meant it.''

Mr. Reagan also argued that the government better served the poor by assuring strong economic growth than by distributing social welfare benefits. He said he had no objection to financing benefits for the ''truly needy'' -- those who could not work because of age, illness or disability. But he staunchly opposed cash assistance for people who could work.

Michael J. Horowitz, a neoconservative who worked in the Reagan White House, said that by combining a conservative ideology with an affable personality, Mr. Reagan ''shattered the caricature of conservatives as less caring and more mean-spirited than liberals.''

But Nancy Amidei, who was then director of the Food Research and Action Center, an advocacy group for the poor, said Monday, ''President Reagan's policies may not have been intended to be mean-spirited, but in many cases, the effect was to hurt low-income people who couldn't work or who had low-paying jobs.''

President Reagan infuriated labor unions in 1981 when he dismissed thousands of air-traffic controllers who had gone on strike and then defied an order to return to work. But former administration officials say Mr. Reagan did not regret his action. Indeed, they say, the dismissals showed people in foreign capitals that Mr. Reagan was a person of substance who was not to be trifled with.

The ascendancy of the Reaganites also moved the Republican Party to a staunchly anti-abortion stance, including endorsements of a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion, the appointment of anti-abortion judges and new restrictions on family planning programs that involved abortion services.

That anti-abortion movement is today a leading force against embryonic stem cell research, which Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called a ''sad irony.'' Nancy Reagan has become a leading voice urging the expansion of such research, which involves the destruction of human embryos, but is considered promising for treatment of many diseases.

In 1988, Mr. Reagan vetoed a bill to extend the reach of federal civil rights laws; he asserted it would ''unjustifiably expand the power of the federal government'' in the affairs of private organizations. Congress overrode his veto.

The Reagan administration also maintained that it was legally required to grant tax exemptions to racially discriminatory private schools. The Supreme Court rejected that contention in 1983. Another move that earned Mr. Reagan the enmity of the civil rights movement was his resistance to economic sanctions against the white minority government of South Africa.

Mr. Bauer asserts that Mr. Reagan's record has been distorted. But Julian Bond, chairman of the N.A.A.C.P., said, ''Everyone wants to extend sympathy to his family, but when you remember the actual record, it's a very, very different story.''

Chart: ''Presidential Approval'' Percentage of the public who approved of how the president was handling his job. Graph tracks the average approval of the following presidents over the course of their respective terms: Jimmy Carter: 43% Ronald Reagan: 54% George Bush: 61% Bill Clinton: 55% George W. Bush: 65% Based on nationwide telephone polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News during each president's term of office.